Thursday, March 31, 2016

Monday/Tuesday:
Following her flat rejection of any more debates with that awfully
mean Bernie Sanders unless he stopped “running a very negative
campaign,” Hillary now says she is “perfectly willing” to
debate him in NY. Providing the DNC can find a time-slot when no-one
will be watching.

Jobs
Is Jobs: ADP
claims that the US private sector added 200,000 jobs in the last
month; too bad 191,000 of them were in service industries, not
actually producing anything. Apparently we are going to get rich by
taking in each other's laundry.

The
Fix Is In: It does not matter who wins the Democratic primary in New York,
the state's
44 superdelegates insist that they will vote for Hillary. End of
story, end of pretense of democracy among the Democrats which will
not be permitted “under any circumstance.”

Aid
& Comfort:
Most Americans support torturing dark-skinned Muslims who might be
terrorists. Most Americans are idiots.

Hardship
Tour: The
Pentagon has ordered 90% of US military dependents to depart Turkey
as soon as possible, for fear they may fall victim to
“possible attacks”. The identity of possible attackers was not
specified, but given recent events it could range from Erdogan's
troops to ISIS fighters... if there's a difference.

Unclear
On The Concept:
Donald Trump claims he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who would
investigate and convict Hillary Clinton over her emails. How soon
does he think there will be 5 vacancies on the Court? And how will
he ensure that he can
find dupes to do what
he instructs? Or that the Senate would confirm them? And since when
does the Supreme Court investigate crimes? Or try and convict
defendants? The only job the Supremes have is to decide whether a
lower court ruling conforms to to the Constitution. Idiot.

Going
Down! The
Atlanta Fed now suspects that 1Q GDP growth will be 0.6%, down from
the 1.4% they were touting just a week ago.

There
There May Be Tygers:
The Pentagon is planning to “defend Eastern European allies”
with American troops, tanks, planes and dollars against Russian
aggression. Sounds familiar, sort of an echo from my youth, long
before you were born. How serious will this be? Well the Deputy
Secretary of Defense says “there will be a division's worth of
stuff there if something happens.” The first thing that would
happen is that a division's worth of stuff would be vaporized.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Most
people have to sell their labor to make their living; and then there
those they sell it to.

Hum
Along: Back in
the battle again, out where a fiend is a friend, where the oil and
money flow – quite why we'll never know - back in the deserts
again.

Good
Question: “If
the Economy Fell Into Recession, Would Anyone Notice?”

Rights?
You Don't Got No Stinking Rights:
Obama's Justice (sic) Department has restarted the program that lets
cops steal your stuff... more or less legally, as long as they use
the money and property to furnish their clubhouses, buy drugs and
entertain whores.

Inflation
Alert: The
government's inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures
Index, fell 1% y/y as a result of the Fed's courageous inflation
fighting.

Fats
Of The Land:
The restaurant and grocery industries have once again forced the
government to delay implementing that part of Obamacare that requires
restaurants to tell customers how many calories there are in menu
items, for fear that the average American might cut back from the
average 3,770 calories a day they now shove into their obese bodies.

Go
Frack Yourself:
Thanks to the oil business, Sooners are now more likely to suffer an
earthquake than those liberals in San Francisco.

Moderation:
Sweden, in an attempt to cool off their housing market, has cut the
maximum length of a mortgage to a paltry 105 years.

Nicely
Put: The big
economic problem is not inequality, it is poverty. If we all had
enough for a decent life, we would not much care how many bathrooms
someone else had.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Topper: "Media Unimpressed As Sanders Barely Gets Seventy Percent Of The Vote." Bad
Movie: The son
of a corrupt dictator (of a country much like Turkey), being held in
an Italian jail for laundering the profits his father (played by
RecepErdoğan)
got from a jihadist organization (based on ISIS) , escapes the jail
and the country with the help of intelligence agents from a third
country (much like Saudi Arabia) using the Mafia to bribe Italian
cops and officials.

Reality
Checked: US
house prices increased 0.1% in January. Apparently the recovery has
stopped recovering.

The
Parting Line:
The DNC insists that with
less than half the state delegates in – and with most
of those awarded to
Clinton coming from
states that are irrelevant for the
Democratic Presidential
candidate in the fall
– it’s all over. If
you don't support Hillary you are a sexist troglodyte. If Bernie
doesn't quit he'll be responsible for Trump's win. Sander's sweep of
the ex-pat, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii primaries by 20 –
30% is Not Important and certainly Not News.

As
Bad As Bad Can Be:
95% of the northern Great Barrier Reef is severely bleached and half
of its corals are expected to die. Far, far away, the
extent ofArctic
sea ice has
reached a record low mark for wintertime.

Monday, March 28, 2016

“This
notice of delinquency has been sent to you because the Republican
Party has contacted you multiple times to ask for your support of our
2016 campaign … We need you to come forward today and send a
contribution of $25 or more.”Republican
National Committee dun notice.

Surely: The Catholic Church Insurance Company, Limited (Hey, I'm not
making this up!) writes insurance policies to cover losses suffered
by the Catholic Church Unlimited when its priests get caught diddling
little kids. To protect themselves against unnecessary losses (and
let's face it, with all the child molesters running around the
Catholic Church, some losses are necessary...) the CCICL insists that
they be informed when the Higher Ups in the CCU learn that a
particular parish priest
has been caught playing with the parishioners'' kids. They have
files. Extensive files. But they are not going to let anybody see
them.

The
Beat Goes On:
The US reports that it killed 73 'militants' in Brussels
Helmand province, Afghanistan over the weekend. We know they were
militants because they're dead.

Honey
Combed:
US Naval
Captain Daniel Dusek, once the chief of Naval operations for the US
Pacific Fleet, has been jailed for providing classified information
to a Malaysian defense contractor (who passed it on to god knows
who) in return for prostitutes.

Soup
To Nuts:
Hillary Clinton is holding a $175,000 a plate fundraiser in
Hollywood. In the last two months Bernie Sanders has raised more
than $140,000,000 from 2 million donors –that's
$170 a plate.

Fails
Smell
Test:
Obama explained to Argentina the CIA helped their generals overthrow
a democratically elected government, ushering in a reign of terror
that killed over 7,000 and “disappeared” tens of thousands in
order to protect US corporate interests, but
that it was just growing pains from the “early dark days” of the
agency. Which was then only 25 years old. Anybody want to talk
about Kissinger, Allende's
overthrow and the Chicago School of exploitation
Economics?

Our
Master's Voice:
The Netinyahu government has approved a bill mandating that children
under 14 be punished as terrorists.

Self-Governing: The Brits have decided to repeal their animal welfare laws and
let chicken farmers set the rules for chicken farmers, pig farmers
regulate pig growing and the foxes will continue to oversee the hen
house... what could go wrong?

Left
And Rights:
The same time a federal judge was ruling Alabama's abortion
restrictions
were unconstitutional, Florida's
governor was signing a law that will keep poor women from having
access to safe
abortion procedures and Indiana
passed a law requiring women carrying a fetus with Down syndromecarry
it to
term as
punishment for getting pregnant.

Happy
Daze: Saudi
Arabia, which claims that democracy
is not needed in the Kingdom because their subjects are happier
“than almost any other people in the world.” Except, of course,
for the guy they just sentenced to 5 years for tweeting something the
Royals didn't like.

Batter
Up: Is it
reasonable to expect that the thaw of relations between Cuba and the
US will lead to American and International companies raping the
country in the name of democracy, capitalism and profit? How long
before the Mob gets to run casinos and whore houses again?

Out
Of Town Tryouts:
The US will fund a multi-million dollar border surveillance system
covering about half the Tunisian/Libyan border. Why only half? And
why – are we trying out some new system that we don't dare use in
Arizona?

Wilder
West: In
Idaho, everybody over 21 can now carry a concealed handgun, no permit
or training required. Drive defensively.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Love
& War:
Faced with an unacceptable prospect, the GOP has a simple solution:
Change the rules. A week or so before the convention, Republican
rules can be changed by the delegates by a simple vote, one which
would allow many/most them to vote for whomever they wish,
particularly if they
no longer wished
to vote for Donald Trump. Sounds crooked? Ha, not nearly as much so
as the Democrats and their Father-Knows-Best superdelegates.

Gotta
Go: Within the
structure of the TTIP, the US insists that the EU's Precautionary
Principle must abandoned. The principle is enshrined in the Treaty
of Lisbon – the foundation document of the entire EU project –
and holds that whenever there is even the possibility that a policy
or action could harm humans or damage the environment, that policy or
action is prohibited. Bunch'a tree huggers.

All
Due Deliberation:
Every analysis of American political history strongly suggests that
rational deliberation has little to do with the political process.
“People vote based on emotion. Period. … Psychology is the only
necessary skill for running for president, and Trump knows
psychology.” He knows that facts don't matter and never have, and
that 90% of us will vote with our guts, not our brains.

Rats
And The Sinking Ship:
The Rockefeller Family Fund – whose money is based on Standard Oil
and its many children – is divesting itself off all investment in
fossil fuels, starting with Exxon. They'd like us to believe this is
because of their deep and abiding love of the environment and fear of
global warming, but these guys are making an investment decision.
Makes y'wonder.

Benchmarks:
Donald Trump, who goes around touting his business acumen, is
actually not doing all that well lately. Never mind the endless
string of bankruptcies, 18 out of 21 of his investments in hedge
funds and mutual funds lost money last year and so far this year 17
of the 21 are further down.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Just
because Trump is a fake does not mean that the emotions he stirs up
are.

Ready
Or Not:
Jim Hansen says that all the IPCC happy talk about 2ºC by 2100 and
maybe 18 inches of sea level rise is a bunch of hooey. He and his
friends think that we will see a 10 foot rise by 2050 – that's
enough to drown every major seacoast city in the world. They also
see a dramatic slowing, if not complete stoppage, of the Gulf Stream
and a dramatic increase in super storms – all
by mid century. +

Suppression:
In Phoenix on primary day, the voters stood in line until midnight
to vote, five hours after the polls officially closed. This was due
to a 70% reduction in polling places since 2012, even though there
was a 400% increase in voters. Whose fault was this? According to
The County Recorder, Republican Helen Purcell – who says Florida's
Katherrine Harris is her role model for suppressing
the black and Latino vote - the blame belongs
to “the voters for getting in line.”

Teaching
Point:
According to the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business
“the United States has lost the will and ability to prosecute top
corporate executives.” They own the banks and have Get Out of Jail
Freecards.

Hope:“What
makes Sanders special, what drives his huge surge of small donors far
in excess of anything achieved by any other candidate of either
party, is that he champions a progressive populism with an integrity
and clarity that makes him the king of credibility in the campaign
with numbers for honesty and trustworthiness that are unmatched by
any other candidate in either party”. The
question isn't 'will Bernie lose/', but will the movement live on?

The
Way Things Are:The
world's middle classes are getting poorer. US workers' share of
income has dropped to near the lowest since World War II. The
rich have gotten markedly richer. In Spain and Greece, unemployment
among those under 25 is close to 40%.European countries are inundated
with
refugees, have little power to stop them, and
have no means to integrate them economically or socially. Only
19% of Americans trust the
government - down from 54% after the 9/11 attacks before
Bush started lying to them and invading countries. In
Europe as distrust of government has also
surged;
84%
of Spaniards don't trust Madrid, and Greeks get convulsed laughing
over the question...

Money
Talks:
In February Bernie raised $43.5 million, Hillary only $29 million.
For the year, February 2015 – February 2016, Hillary
raised $229 million, Sanders only $140 million, but not one penny of
his came from Superpacs or direct investment by Wall Street.

Indigestion:
Only 60% of Democrats have a favorable view of Hillary, only half of
Republicans can stomach Trump. Nationally 57% of voters can't stand
The Donald and a few less – 53% - feel the same about Ms. Clinton.
The latest polling suggests Trump would beat Clinton by 1% while
Sanders
would trounce Trump by 14% of the vote. So naturally the DNC
wants Hillary as their candidate – it's her turn and she's bought
and paid for.

Our
Size Fits All:
Under the rules imposed by the US, the
US Government will not
ratify the TPP
agreement until the
laws and practices of all the other countries
are consisten
with the US
interpretation of the agreement.

Shifty
Politics: In
February national polls showed Clinton leading Sanders 55/38, today
it's 51/44. Looks like Bernie's been putting on weight.

Noted:
The Republican elite
fear that working class voters will finally
realize that tax cuts
for the
wealthy and funding
cuts to programs
benefiting the
working class has not
brought them the promised prosperity and begin to understand that
their future rests in taxing the rich.

Less
Is Less, Much Less:
The global dry-bulk fleet will “contract significantly” this
year – for the first time since forever.

Opportunity
Knocked: In
the wake of the Brussels bombing, police agencies across the US are
seizing the opportunity to “increase security” - even though it
is still far safer to go to an airport in Europe than a wedding in
Afghanistan or a hospital in Yemen.

Truthiness:
Bill Clinton was caught complaining about “the awful legacy of the
last 8 years.” Trying to make it better the
Clinton campaign explained that “the
last eight years”have
nothing to do with Obama at all.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Pawn
To King's Pawn Four:
Having shored up the Assad regime to the anoyance of the Turks,
Russia has now started shipping weapons to Kurds in Iraq. Turkey has
historically been the Tsars' enemy.

Emperor's
Clothes: VP
Biden is in trouble once more for pointing out the unmentionable
obvious. This time Joe said that Israels continued annexation of
Palestinian land to build housing for Israelis made it hard to
believe anything Netinyahu says about working for a two-state
solution. Obviously he, unlike Hillary, is not running for
President.

Yes,
But: While 60%
of 18 to 29 year-olds support the idea of US conducting ground combat
operations against ISIS, 60% of them would not go fight, even if they
were needed.

Quoted:
"True vulnerability is to put your family on a boat which you
don't know if it's going to make it across the sea. True
vulnerability is to flee even if you don't know where you're going,
if you will get there, if you will even survive. But this is what it
is when the alternative is impossible to live with. Therefore, you
have to escape. That is vulnerability.” Fredrik
Reinfeldt Former
PM of
Norway.

Indexes
Indexed: The
Chicago Fed's composite index of a whole bunch of other economic
indexes showed US economic growth slowing in February.

Enough,
Already: Iain
Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary in the Cameron government,
has resigned in disgust over Cameron's intent to cut disability
benefits in order to give the rich tax breaks. Cameron would not
adress the charges but reiterated his support for “"a
modern, compassionate Conservatism". Which
is the same sort of mumbo-jumbo in London that it is in Washington.

Money/Mouth:
In February Bernie Sanders raised $14 million more than Hillary
Clinton and spent $9,4 million more – all without squillioniare
Wall Street support.

Object
Lesson:
Republicans in theKnessetNY
State Senate are cutting $485 million from the CUNY budget for
allowing criticism of Israel which always
constitutes
anti-Semitism in US political circles [Note Joe Biden, above.].

Inside
Job: Back in
December, long before the poisoning of the residents of Flint became
a national scandal, someone broke into the Flint city hall and made
off with a files relating to the water system problems. The cops say
it was an inside job, but whether the insider was protecting the
politicians or the people remains a mystery.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Miracles: Florida
Republicans insist that defunding Planned Parenthood will not
inconvenience any women, because they could go to dentists, school
nurses, optometrists, podiatrists,and correctional facilities to get
their birth control prescriptions, pre-natal care and other pregnancy
related healthcare. This will hurt poor women, of course – that's
the whole point. But they're likely to vote for Hillary...

The
Lesser of Two Evils:
Mitt Romney says he will vote for Cruz over Trump not because he
supports Cruz but because he is marginally less disgusting. Well,
that's not what Mitt said, but that's what he meant.

Size
Matters: A
California real estate
agent has been
sentenced to 14 years
in prison for $30 million
in mortgage fraud,
while not a single Wall
Street banker has gotten anything except bonuses for the same crime.

The
Easy Buttons:
Ever use one of those tiny apps for your smartphone that let you send
you pictures to your desktop computer without using a physical cable
connection? That's exactly how difficult is is for any competent spy
service – and despite being a government agency, the NSA is quite
competent – to take control of your phone, turn on the mike and
camera and use it to monitor you whenever they wish. Your smartphone
is a surveillance device that
happens to provide phone service and Internet access. And
it's not just you - Hillary, for example,
is wholly owned by the
NSA.

Fair's
Fair: The
Canadian parents who 'treated' their child's bacterial
meningitis and emphysema,
conditions routinely cured with antibiotics, with
herbal teas and withheld medical care while watching him die are now
on trial for killing him.

Now
It Can Be Told:
It is finally dawning on economists that trade agreements as least
since NAFTA have shipped jobs overseas to the detriment of US workers
and that the lost manufacturing
jobs are never coming
back. Ooops.

Housekeeping:President
Obama will name Air Force General Lori Robinson as
then next head of Northern Command – that's the military
designation for North America. Typical, they try to do good by naming
a woman to head a combat command and then put her in charge of the
homeland.

Take
That: A bill
pending in New Jersey would make texting while walking and
chewing gum
illegal, punishable by a fine and or 15 days in jail. Letting
them walk blindly into traffic would teach better lessons.

Theory
Of The Crime? A
Massachusetts couple is being charged with “reckless endangerment
of a fetus” for cultivating marijuana in their home. A bit further
south, Tampa's
city council has voted to decriminalize marijuana, even for the
pregnant.

Seizing
The
Moment: Turkey
has determined that the Istambul bombing was the work of ISIS, so
Erdogan will punish them by attacking Kurds.

Humanitarianism:
The US Army is setting up equipment
depots in several Asian countries, including Cambodia and Vietnam.
According to General Dennis Via of the US Army Material Command,
these “ prepositioned stocks are go-to-war equipment.” but the
Pentagon insists the supplies are “primarily for humanitarian
disaster relief operations.” Primarily.
Perhaps that also
explains why the US is going to co-locate forces at
five more Philippine Air and Naval bases. This is the second
enlargement of the US force presence
in the Philippines
in the last year.

Rounding
Down: The
District of Columbia is suing Kraft
Heinz for claiming that
their “100% Grated Parmesan Cheese” is 100% Parmesan cheese when
it is generally 3.8% sawdust.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Take
the Money and ...:Marco
Rubio, former
Republican pin-up presidential candidate, says he will not be
anybody's vice presidential running mate, will not run for
re-election and will not seek to be Florida's next governor. Don't
worry, something lucrative will turn up... or has already.

Clip
And Save:
Someday soon the Democratic elite will come to regret kicking Sanders
to the curb and embracing Clinton. Most
likely we all will.

Eeny
Meeny Mine:
Minneapolis prosecutor Mike Freeman said that he alone will decide
whether to indict police officers who shoot blacks because grand
juries don't always get the right answers.

Asked
And Obvious:
The NYTimes wonders if the experts have been
wrong about the benefits of free
trade agreements
for the American economy? Depends
if you're an owner or an ower.

Our
Gang: The
GOP-controlled KY senate has passed a bill that would encourage
businesses to deny services to same-sex couples. Next
door in TN a Republican bill would use $100,000 budgeted for
school diversity programs at UT and use the money on 'In God We
Trust” stickers. GOP officials
in AL will require biology textbooks to include prominent
disclaimers telling students to doubt evolution. Their counterparts
in GA have passed a 'religious liberty' bill that encourages
anti-LGBT hate crimes.
AL Republicans intend to cut food stamp eligibility from five to
three years in a lifetime, and only if the recipients do not own a
car. If the poor own a car they will be ineligible for help. And
this is pre-Trump.

Money's
Worth:
Research notes that doctors who get more cash from Big Pharma
prescribe more of Big Pharma's drugs.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Entrails:
The Republicans continue to insist that they will not meet,
interview, interrogate, investigate, hold hearings on, or vote on any
Supreme Court candidate nominated
by Obama. (Fox says that being nominated by the President is the
kiss of death.) Do they really, really think that Donald
Trump's choices will make them happy? More to the point, will
Hilary”s?

No
Means No:Argentina told
a Chinese ship to stop fishing in Argentinian waters. It did not so
they sank it.

Baby,
It's Coal Outside:
Peabody Energy, the largest US coal miner says it may join its major
rivals in seeking
Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection after it “delayed” a
$71 million interest
payment that was due on March
15.

Agency:
Pope Francis
says that Mother Teressa will
be made a saint next
fall. Sorry, sir, but the best you can do is recognize sainthood,
not “make” someone saintly – and most certainly not someone who
wanted others to suffer so she could succor them.

Fair's
Fair: FIFA
says that the $190 million that had been forfeited by its officials
who pled guilty to extorting bribes in return for their votes in
selecting World Cup host cities should be returned to the
organization. It was, after all, stolen fair and square by their
officers in the ordinary course of business.

Boy
Scouts: Donald
Trump has told his supporters that they should be prepared to riot if
he does not get the nomination.

Ontogeny
Recapitulates Phylogeny:
Scientists have been able to delay the maturational effects of
certain genes in chickens, creating embryos with dinosaur legs –
essentially reversing evolutionary change. Interesting. But moreso,
this: The gene they manipulated was “the Indian homolog gene
common to all animals, including man.” Except, of course, in
Kentucky and North Carolina.

Porn
O'Graph:
“Except for the names and few other changes the story's the
same...”

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Fairly
Traded: On
average, Americans without college educations – that's 70% of the
work force – have lost and will continue to lose about $2,000 a
year to low-wage workers in countries on the other end of those
'free-trade' agreements. Ask Mrs. Clinton about NAFTA.
Or the Taking Profit
Perpetually abomination.
Trade agreements
deliver cheap consumer
goods to the US and
profits to the corporations,
not
economic growth
and
not jobs.

Child's
Play: In the
US, you are in far more danger of being shot by a toddler
than being harmed by a Muslim terrorist. You are probably
in far more danger of being vaporized by a US drone than by a Muslim
terrorist. Trump supporters? Toss a coin.

Citizen
United: Donald
Trump has been able to campaign on the cheap because to date he has
gotten over $2 billion in free coverage from the media as it reports
on his clown show. One black protester tripped and beaten is worth a
day's headlines. Measuring his penis got him a lot more attention
that the little fella is worth.

The
Camel's Nose:
Now it's not just the iPhone in California that the FBI wants Apple
to unlock – there's this urgrent need to get into one in Boston.
No, not a terrorist thing, just a gang thing. The Justice Department
is threatening
to seize Apple's iOS source code if they don't cave in to threats
pretty soon. Elsewhere in Washington the FCC is preparing “strict
rules” to protect your online privacy. Fun times.

Flying
Start: In
October 2016, some state's driver's licenses
will not be accepted by TSA as identification permitting you to fly –
but that deadline may be extended to 2018. Either way, by 2021 you
will need to present your passport in order to board an aircraft.
And before then the IRS will have the power to relieve you of your
passport. Arrangements for issuing internal passports and travel
permits are still pending.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

The
Illustrator:
Donald Trump is rubbing our faces in the the fact that fascism is not
an antique relic, that about 30% of US adults are racist,
sexist, xenophobic, economically illiterate morons. Some of these
yahoos are forming
a 'militia' to protect their leader from those New York liberals
who keep stepping in front of elbows and fists at Trump tent
revivals.

Rights
And Wrongs:
Oklahoma Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would classify
abortion as a first degree murder. Quite who would fry/get
gassed/hang was unclear, but certainly the woman and probably the
doctor and nurses and state and local Planned Parenthood
administrators.

Uncommon
Corps: The
Mississippi House has passed a bill requiring that public school
teachers issue grades to parents. Not that bad of an idea – as
long as I get to set the standards.

Secret
Handshake:
According to Paul Krugman, much of economics dogma about markets and
globalization consists simply of “guesses
about such things,” often
“based on loose
historical reasoning.” He
concluded by confessing that he and his fellow practitioners “should
be cautious in our claims about the virtues of free trade.”

Progress:
Apparently the internet
has finally gotten to Salt Lake City; the Mormons are warning
against an epidemic of pornography and the Utah House has declared it
to be a
public health crisis.

Private
Profits:
During her first year as Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton insisted
that a company called Laureate Education be invited to an
education policy dinner hosted at the U.S. Department of State. A
few months later Mr. Clinton became “honorary chancellor” of
Laureate, a position that paid him $16.5 million over the next four
years. Laureate students, of course, are eligible for US-backed
student loans...

Observed:
"People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People
are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment." Nassim
Taleb

Onward
And Upward:
Great Britain, which is less and less great the longer the current
crop is in office, will reduce the tax rate on upper-middle class
families and cover the budget shortfall by cutting the support
currently given to 640,000 of the nation's disabled.

Without
Comment:
Following months of investigation, the Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission unanimously referred Robert Rubin to the Department of
Justice for criminal investigation into “violations of the laws of
the United States” committed by the former US Treasury Secretary in
his positions with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The DOJ immediately
filed through the shredder. Nothing was done. Nothing will be.

An
Explanation:Nationally 23% of the
25-to-54-year-old population is
not working – either
actively or passivelyunemployed, up
from 18% in 2000.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Curiosity
Shopping: A US
judge has entered a summary judgement ordering Iran to pay $10.5
billion to the victims of the Saudi 9/11 attack on the World Trade
Center and their insurance companies, not because Iran had anything
to do with it – it was mostly the work of Saudi-funded Saudis –
but because the Iranians declined to dignify the charges by replying
to them.

Theory
And Practice:
In theory, negative interest rates will encourage people to invest.
In reality, it will encourage people to put money in mason jars and
bury them in the back yard. Same with Draghi and his
latest attempt
to ward off the
coming depression in Europe – make companies an offer they can't
refuse – then stand back and watch them refuse. The
public is nowhere near
as stupid as economists and central bankers.

Bigger
Brother:
Obama, at the SXSW technology conference, tried out his new standup
routine with a deadpan declaration that the government cannot allow
you any privacy on your smartphones because you might someday be a
terrorist. Or a Sandersnista. And besides, your insurance company
needs
to monitor your diet app and Fitbit data.

THINK:
Okay, so the AlphaGo computer beat real world-class human Go
players. Why's that a big deal? Because AlphaGo was not programeed
to play Go, it was programed to learn how to play – and it did.
Quickly. Well enough to imply it can learn lots of other games, like
investing... or living. AlphaGo uses a generic technique for
learning, one that can master all sorts of things that humans in
offices get paid to do today. And the things that soldiers get paid
to do, too.

An
Open Records Record:
If you would like to have copies – electronic copies, push a
button copies, no paper involved, no printer, no labor – of the
emails showing how city employees dealt with the lead poisoning,
it'll cost you $172,203.
Which may go a long
way toward explaining how the city ended up in so much trouble in the
first place.

Tribulations:
Mr. Krugman has been ranting on about how globalization is the work
of gods and kings and omniscient economists while justifying the harm
various free-looting agreements
have done to the US by ignoring the lost jobs, the lost manufacturing
plants, the lost tax base, and the lost stature of economists who
support looting on a global scale. Then he turns to Trump and
Sanders and claims they would “rip up America's international
agreements” and damage “our credibility and standing in the
world.” What credibility? And our main “standing in the world”
is that of a serial invader and overthrower of governments; one which
routinely creates a fine mist out of random Muslims in the service of
international capitalism. Ah, but I drone on...

Half-Measure:
California will soon permit “medically assisted suicide”,
assuming you can find a doctor brave enough to let you die.

Matchmakers:
Doctors have managed to fool a patient's immune system into
accepting a kidney transplant from a donor who is not a biological
“match”.

Government
Math: Canada
spends $2.5 million overseeing the half-million dollar seal harvest.
Be a lot cheaper to stop clubbing the little fellas and just give the
couple of million to the “hunters.”

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.